It is known to wrap or envelop articles having an essentially orthogonal form, such as bundles of lumber, pulp, plywood or chipboard, or a pile of any adequate type of articles, on five sides thereof by suitable wrapper material. This can be done to protect the articles, for instance to provide protection during transportation and storage, or to provide a solid surface for various markings such as for example, identifiers, labels and/or commercial advertisements. In some instances, the wrapper material is used to give the articles a neater appearance, and/or to hide some details thereof which are not intended to be seen by the public.
Placement and folding of the wrapper sheet is usually a manual or semi-automatic operation, whereby a wrapper material Web is supplied from a material roll positioned above the article to be wrapped. The article is placed on a conveyor, and the wrapper is drawn from the roll over the article as the article passes by the roll. When the rear end of the article has passed the material roll, the material web is manually or automatically cut. The wrapper material is then folded around the article. The attachment of the wrapper foldings or tongues may be effected by gluing, taping, riveting, stapling, etc.
Known methods of wrapping an article include the use of rollers to apply wrapping material to the faces of the article, and/or blowers to position the wrapper material and optionally heat shrink it in place. However, if the wrapper material is not correctly positioned prior to engagement with the rollers and/or jets from the blowers, the resulting aspect of the wrapped product may be irregular, which is undesirable.